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Friday, 23 April 2010

"Burn down the disco. Hang the blessed D.J. Because the music that they constantly play it says nothing to me about my life"

If you were on the train to Fratton around 8.30 last Friday you may have seen a guy carrying a hi hat and two amps, a girl in a Smiths t-shirt playing a snare drum, a slightly orange girl clutching a couple tom toms and myself sitting on a bass drum. Yes we had to carry the drum kit to the gig. Thank god the pub we were playing at was only a ten minute walk from the station.

The guy I call Bob (it went past the point, two months ago, where I could politely ask him his name) dropped the hi-hat just outside the Fawcett Inn. We all froze as it shuddered against the pavement. Anna closed her eyes.

"Is it ok? Please tell me its ok?" She asked.

Poor Bob was having a hard time picking it back up with an amp tucked under both arms. Penny piled her tom toms onto the bass drum i was holding and picked up the hi-hat and headed to the bar.

"Well is it ok?" Anna asked her eyes still closed.

I felt the weight of the three drums i was holding kick in but before anyone could help me the Bass drum had made a break for it and was rolling down the road.

After a short chase and redistribution of drums we finally made it into the pub. The kit seemed to survive its adventure and Anna set it up without another incident. I found Penny at the bar.

"Warm up drink" She said drinking a strawberry dacarie.

How she got a strawberry dacarie in a place where they only have two beers on tap I have no idea. The barman was nowhere in sight so I reached over a poured myself a Scumpy jack.

"I don't think anything else can go wrong." I said after downing the jack.

I didn't realize how wrong I was until half way through 'There is a light that never goes out.' Now granted I don't have the best voice in the world. I am singer by default (I have rather a good La roux style quiff, the quiff is important for a Smiths tribute front person) but I thought I was doing quite a good job. That was till our rather good size audience (30 people) started shouting they wanted 'Sound of the underground' and 'The promise'.

It slowly dawned on me they had come to see a Girls Aloud tribute band. Not Girl Afraid, The Smiths tribute band. This is why you don't have the newsagents cousin Sanjeev print your posters half price. We continued bravely through 'Girlfriend in a Coma' until the faces on the audience got to us. Morrissey fans are never the happiest bunch but these lot looked like they were going to put there underage fists through our faces.

Penny winked at me and changed the bass line.

And yes we did it, the all girl Smiths tribute band got our first encore playing "Sound of the Underground".

So Morrissey if you don't like the song don't burn down the disco just change the music.